Niegel Smith

Niegel Smith is a performance artist and theater director who sculpts social spaces into unique communal environments where we make new rituals, excavate our pasts and imagine future narratives. His work has been produced by The Public Theater, Classical Theatre of Harlem, HERE Arts Center, Summer Play Festival, New York Fringe Festival and the Phoenix Theatre Ensemble. As PERMISO with Co-Artistic Director Todd Shalom, Niegel has co-conceived and staged various mass rituals in public settings in New York and Buenos Aires.

Niegel is a graduate of Dartmouth College and has received grants and fellowships from Theater Communications Group, the Van Lier Fund and the Tucker Foundation. Before surviving high school in Detroit, he grew up in the North Carolina piedmont, fishing with his dad, shopping with his mom and inventing tall-tale fantasies with his two younger brothers.